Light
Written for Gil in the Mysterious Island ficathon.
Gideon Spilett had never seen so beautiful a November. He still thought it peculiar, occasionally, that the months were backwards, and the trees put out their leaves and the flowers bloomed and their cultivated gardens began to grow up, when it was a time he expected the world to go all over frost. But stranger things have happened, he thought, standing on the elevator outside Granite House and feeling the sun. He felt like one of young Harbert's lizards (the boy knew all about everything, plants and animals alike), basking smugly.
And it was beautiful. He smiled slightly to himself and leaned back against the wall of Granite House. There had been no rain in weeks, not since October, and the air smelled of clean things. It was quiet, and pleasant, and he realised that he appreciated this quiet, this quiet and the sunlight. He had no passionate enthusiasm and love of it the way Pencroff had of things; but he appreciated standing here alone, warm and surrounded by a something which was not silence--because there was a soft buzzing to it, as when one stood in a field back home and heard the cicadas and crickets going--but was nothing like the noise of New York or a battlefield in the War.
Then he realised he had still not got to the place where Lincoln Island was home, the way his companions had, and he understood quite well the request he was about to make of Cyrus.
~~~
"But my dear Gideon, why is it you want to do that?"
"It's nothing against you, nor the others. I'd just like to be by myself for a while. I'll explore the island and see if there's not something I can find that will interest you: I'll put all my writing skills to work; I'll make minute descriptions and little sketches; I'll bring you back anything I think you'll use. But the fact is, I want to be by myself. I'll go about it quite unobtrusively, just leave to-day and come back on Thursday. Oh, don't look at me like that, Cyrus. It's simply a week."
"Very well, then. If you have your heart set on it."
"Assuredly."
"All right. Neb will help you get some things together; food and a few of the canvas blankets."
"Thank you, Cyrus." Softly. "I'm very glad that you--"
"No, no, my dear Gideon; anything to help you."
"Well, thank you. I expect I'll set out by about two o'clock. I'm sure everything will go along quite well in my absence."
~~~
Gideon spent the first day in Jacamar Woods.
He had not before had time to notice how many sorts of plants there were there, and, to his pleasure, how many of them he recognised from listening to Cyrus instruct Harbert. Why, indeed, here was--oh--foeniculum vulgare--blooming even, and rather lovely, so that he hesitated for a moment before he broke it off. And there, that was salvia officinalis. Cyrus was always saying 'cur moriatur homo, ciu calvia crescit in horto?', which Gideon had written down in his notebook very precisely, next to a drawing--but there the plant was, the real thing, and he broke that off too. Then he noticed, a little way off, monarda didyma--and conium maculatum, which he knew was poisonous. Under that tree there was thevetia peruviana. It pleased him that he knew so many, and he set about gathering them and putting them in his notebook and writing the names beneath them--and at that moment, realised for the first time how much he had come to depend on Cyrus.
It was over such a simple thing, too! It was that he couldn't make the leaves and flowers and stems stay in his notebook without them slipping out between the pages. He realised, as he was kneeling on the rather spongy earth and picking up colocasia antiquorum leaves, that if Cyrus were there, he could ask him how to make them stay, and Cyrus would probably produce some kind of sticky paste made from tree sap or something equally unlikely, and the problem would have been solved in a moment.
Without Cyrus, he was forced to pause for several minutes, leaning back against a tree, and ponder what he might do. It was a wonderful tree; tall and smooth and rounded, pressing into his back as he closed his eyes and turned his face to the sky. There was only a little birdsong, not particularly loud; and the faint sound of water somewhere far off.
Briefly, he fell asleep.
He awoke with a start when it occurred to him, despite his dream, that he was leaning on a tree, and that it seemed to be dripping sap down his neck, and of course that was worth a try. It was certainly sticky enough. He pulled his tam off the tree bark and scraped a bit of the sap from it on his fingers, and then painstakingly applied it to his notebook pages, pressing the leaves down on it.
They stayed.
That was when he realised that he did indeed depend on Cyrus, but if he truly tried, he could come up with his own solutions. He laughed out loud, shut the notebook, and continued walking, still trying to get the sap off his tam o'shanter.
Several hours later, he paused again, and found that the pages of his notebook were glued shut.
~~~
That night, he slept beneath some large, leafy trees of a very inviting appearance. He first made himself a bed of leaves, muttering their Latin names to himself as he gathered them; then lay down upon it on his back, looking at the sky musingly.
It was odd, but he thought... He thought of home. Cyrus and Pencroff and Harbert and Neb might find it easy to take to new surroundings like ducks to water (to use the old saying), but he couldn't fix it in his mind that he belonged here. The others were content, but although he was never truly, wrenchingly unhappy, still he spent quite a few days gazing out the windows of Granite House or pausing in his work and looking toward the sea, thinking 'Why am I here?'; or wondering when he would return to America. Would he ever? The thought of staying here forever was unpleasant--for God's sake, he thought, sifting some leaves through his fingers, he had a sweet old mother back in America, and what state might she be in? He wondered what he would do if he found she'd died in his absence.
Pencroff and Harbert seemed to have and to need no one but themselves; Neb was devoted to Cyrus; and Cyrus himself had admitted that his family was dead and he had no one who might fear for his safety save his companions on the island; but Gideon had people waiting for him to return.
"Blast it," he murmured to himself, as he looked up at the dark sky. And what of the War? The War was still going on when he'd left America. What had happened now? Was it over? God, he hoped it was. He was a war correspondent, of course, and he'd been in battles. He'd seen enough. He'd stood around in the fields with poor young men being slaughtered all about him for good causes and then written articles on it in which he neglected to mention their ages or the looks on their faces. He only noted the statistics and the figures and the locations, in a manner that, while it had no excess of emotion, still managed to seem inspirational. The readers of the New York Herald might perhaps not have appreciated knowing that at times when it seemed they were winning the war, their reporter was in a fury over the men who were unable ever to know.
Occasionally the editor allowed him to write an article in which he could say anything he liked, and he went on hotly, breaking his pens more often than not (he always wrote everything out in shorthand before he sent it in); then he read over what he'd written and carefully calmed it down until it was acceptable. 'Anything he liked' rarely meant that.
The War and his mother tied themselves together in a way. He was not certain she would not believe him killed in it now he'd been away so long. One didn't know. One never knew. She had spoken of her friends who had no idea where their sons might be, and he'd nodded, looking at the floor between his feet, sitting on one of her chairs with the embroidered slipcovers, fingering his tam discontently because she always spoke of misfortune with a frightened, imploring look on her face, as though she did not want him to leave again, and he knew quite well he would.
He wondered if their disappearance in the balloon had been noted across the United States, or whether it might have been hidden. Was there the possibility that people knew what had happened to them, or was it more likely no one had the beginning of an idea where they might be, where they might have gone?
He fell asleep thinking of these things, and dreamt of setting type for his mother's obituary, and dreamt that the words explained she'd been killed in the War.
~~~
He awoke on the second day to find that he was wet and stiff, and as he ate breakfast from the sack Neb had given him, he thought it might have been better to stay at Granite House and enjoy the beauties of nature from the elevator and through day-trips into the woods. He was suddenly cold, and suddenly not as pleased with the darkish woods.
But there, he thought, standing and arching his back painfully, he had said he would go out to find things for Cyrus, and a notebook full of sticky leaves nowhere near sufficed. Besides, surely, the higher the sun got, the warmer and drier the woods would become. He would stand it. He was Gideon Spilett.
He smiled briefly and began his walking. He was nearing the Forests of the Far West, where none of the five men had ever bothered to go before. It had never seemed necessary to venture into the darker, wilder part of the island when they had all they needed in the far safer part. As he went through, he found himself pushing back branches at nearly every step; brushing cobwebs back from his face; stepping in the holes of burrowing animals; often stumbling, which bothered him rather, as usually he had a very steady walk.
He was, however, correct one one point: the world got progressively warmer as the day went on.
It was amazing how far one could walk without realising it. He passed through tall, thick trees with new green leaves, and shorter, slender ones with silver trunks and little green buds. He went through tall grass and carpets of the needles of pines without ever leaving the woods, without ever seeing the sun except filtered through hundreds of branches. There were birds here, too, and they called out to one another in voices sometimes sweet, sometimes harsh, sometimes amusing because of their peculiarity; and sometimes with sounds that made him shiver involuntarily and mutter curses at them as he bent down to find a walking stick that would be sturdy enough to fight off creatures as well. It was a strange world, this place inside the woods. He could understand why they'd never before cared to come here, as it was the sort of place where their nearly unfaltering happiness, their confidence in themselves and in one another, could never prosper.
He mused on that for a little while. It was odd, but they needed the light. He recalled when they had first come to the island, and Cyrus had been lost, and they had searched for him in the dark rain. Then Neb had been driven into a wild, not quite sane despair, in which he wandered up and down the beach and finally disappeared to look for his master--and Pencroff had been unable to sleep, which was unheard of. He'd spent the nights going to the opening of The Chimneys and looking out at the tossing sea, his hat clutched in his hands. This was due to the absence of light. It was not like their cheerful, real sailor.
Then he was distracted in defining Pencroff, for Pencroff did indeed merit the term 'real' in describing him. Gideon had observed them all, and while Cyrus was of course real, he came up with his brilliant ideas, almost... stood back, in a way, when they did things; and the way everyone held him in such high regard made him seem rather separate, and certainly rather more than real. Neb, too, had something of a kind of magic about him, something in his looking different which made him different, something in his black eyes and glittering gold earrings and lanky way of standing about that made him an amused spirit rather than a man. Harbert was distinctive for exactly the same reason, but inside out. He was so pale, so white, but had eyes and eyelashes so dark that they stood out in his white face, against his white skin. His hair was light, too, and he was terribly small for a boy of seventeen. That, together with the way he was so very clever and always speaking of things Gideon didn't know, or mentioning other languages and countries with a carelessness Gideon found slightly amazing, gave him the aspect of an unreal thing.
Only Pencroff, full of faults, with the colours and features of a man, with blue eyes and a brown, curly beard, and tempers and humours and sorrows and ecstasies, made Gideon think of a truly real person. It was sometimes enviable.
But (and Gideon remembered his original thought) Pencroff was a realness that needed light to survive on. As part of his reality, he fed on joy, like any human who was sane and decent.
When they were first without light, those first days on the island, however, Gideon had not been quite the same as the others. He had been full of despair, yes, that they might never find Cyrus whom they all loved so very dearly; but he had believed that if they lost Cyrus, they must still live, and he had tried to make this clear. He had been convinced that without their light, they must force themselves to make new light, despite the fact that they might indeed need to force themselves. It might be that way; but they would do it.
Here, now, in the woods, he believed he could make his own light. He believed that he could get along all right, even if he did feel a shudder of disgust and slight fear at the sound of the birds which he didn't recognise. He thought of the others being in such a place, and believed that they would huddle around Cyrus for their light--and that he would, too, if Cyrus were there; and he believed that without Cyrus, they would break apart and wander and go no-where. He also believed, however, that he might well continue walking in the dark. He could make his own light out of this heavy, pine-scented place. Among the shadows, there were glimmers of the sun striking through the woods, and he believed he could trace them.
Then he made up songs. He had no memory for music and words, so he remembered bits and pieces of things he'd heard once, and gave them his own words; or else he remembered words and set them to his own tunes. It sufficed.
The more did this, the more he realised that he was a terrible singer, and he laughed at himself as he went along, following his light. He sang about girls mistaken for swans and shot, and of bonny boats going to Skye, and of the winds of the western sea. He disturbed the birds and frightened away the animals and alerted every creature in the woods to his presence, and didn't mind it in the least. As he heard his own voice breaking among the quiet trees, he couldn't help smiling.
~~~
On the third day, he was still passing through the Forest of the Far West, having woken again cold upon the third morning and wrung out his tam o'shanter before he started because it was quite extraordinarily damp. He didn't mind wearing damp clothes, but his tam, he thought, twisting it hard, must never be.
He suspected it was going to rain, and he only hoped that the thick woods might shield him a little from the wet and the cold. What a pity he had not asked Neb for more blankets!
On this day, however, he thought mainly of people. It took his mind off the rain, and interested him besides. He had met many people because he'd been sent many places, and though he occasionally forgot one or two of them, for the most part, he tried to remember everyone he'd met.
He remembered the trip to France, where he'd written the obituary of the philanthropist Madame the Baroness Pontmercy, who had died of a severe chill at the age of forty-six; everyone he interviewed spoke of nothing but how tragic it was, what a good woman she had been, how sad it was that she was so young when she died. He remembered how foolish he had been then, just six years ago, in thinking that it was indeed a pity, but after all people died. That was before the war, of course, and he didn't know how dearly one should value life then. And he had written such a terrible obituary as a result...! At times he still wished he had the chance to rewrite it.
Then again, he thought of England and his interview with Professor Lanyon, an old man who told him of the dangers of progress. What a mad old man he had been, too! Ranting and raving about the evils of the world, which he claimed were spurred on by new discoveries and dangerous new experiments. How he'd gone on! But Gideon wondered if something had forced these ideas into his head somehow, for the man was an esteemed scientist. In truth, he seemed nothing but the shell of a man who might once have been a genius when Gideon spoke with him, but it seemed as though it were only a recent decline. That was a true pity.
Then he thought on the people of America, of a brilliant young man known as Edgar, who became famous for his supposed ability to predict the future. Gideon didn't believe a word of it, but he loved the interview. Edgar had curious eyes and a solemn smile, and answered questions quite straightforwardly. Along with Edgar, Gideon had met and been able to have a long talk with the murderer Simon Legree before he was hanged, and with J. T. Maston on the subject of aviation, though the man thought it entirely pointless and preferred his weapons club.
In Scotland he spoke with John Ryan, the renowned bagpiper, and in Poland, where he had been sent for only a few days and only after his own long insistence, with Dr. Boris Margolis on the subject of ghosts, demons, spirits, and superstitions. The people who believed in unnatural things were sometimes more interesting than those who believed that they could be explained, he found, though the Doctor was quite as fascinating to speak with as was Mr. Ryan.
But these people, he thought, were all wonderful in a way, all inexpressibly incredible because they were people, and because he had been allowed to speak with them and, for a few brief moments, feel as though he knew them. Even the murderer, even the madman, even the philanthropist whom he only knew of from other people's testimonies--for a little while, he'd felt as though they were his.
Perhaps this was because he never truly knew them, for he never felt that sense of being allowed with Cyrus Smith, despite the fact that Cyrus was perhaps more brilliant than Dr. Lanyon or Dr. Margolis ever would be. He was permitted to speak and be with Cyrus constantly; with these other men, he had been let in for only a moment, and sent away again in a moment, with just the memory to keep. Certainly, he loved Cyrus! Certainly he thought him without equal! But Cyrus was all the same not someone he wouldn't dare to touch. Cyrus was more real, for all Gideon had thought the contrary yesterday.
But perhaps, he thought unsurely, perhaps the truth was that Cyrus was not as real as they after all. Perhaps Cyrus was too magnificent to be true.
Gideon was astonished and a little frightened to realise that he almost believed this.
~~~
On the fourth day, he finally emerged from the Forest sometime late in the afternoon. He had no idea where he was, but because it was the fourth day, he planned to circle around back to The Chimneys by following the coastline. After all, Lincoln Island was substantially small, and it wouldn't take him longer than the three days he had left to make it back again, surely.
For some reason, he found himself earnestly wishing for a mug of hot coffee. Back at the New York Herald's reporter's bar (very small, very old, but nonetheless always full), he might always have hot coffee, and he had learnt to treasure it. At the moment, he was feeling exceedingly deprived, due in part to the fact that he was freezing. A beautiful November! he thought cynically, eyeing the sky. Indeed! Well, it had begun beautiful, but now it was cold, quite cold, and he would have given quite a lot to be back at Granite House enjoying the fire and listening to Cyrus instruct Harbert, his comforting, familiar voice going on in the peculiar language of engineering, as he described machinery and techniques and pieces to the poor boy. Pencroff would be smoking with Joop, and the smoke would seep through the air in tall, wide loops, smelling as it always did, and always would; and Neb would be in the kitchen area, singing to himself in African while he prepared dinner. Neb loved cooking, of course, or they would not have him do it, and he came alive in his kitchen. Instead of watching the others with a slightly cynical expression, he would glow and sing and spring about, doing all the... the things one did in a kitchen. It was not Gideon's strong point.
The point was that he had just discovered that he might indeed have realised that Cyrus was more than a man and been frightened by the realisation; or he might have found that he couldn't call Lincoln Island home--but he loved Cyrus anyway, and he was happy on Lincoln Island at any rate. There was not just discontentment, as he had thought some mornings when he awoke and looked disconsolately at the dark sky and the rain and wondered how long he would be here. He could make his own light, and he did. He had his own light. But besides that, he had Cyrus, and Neb, Harbert, Pencroff, all of them, and they added to the light.
He thought of this, thought of discovering that he could manage things without Cyrus always there, knew certainly that one day he would return to his mother, remembered his terrible singing, was proud of all the people he had spoken with over the years, anticipated returning to Granite House and hearing the usual sounds and smelling tobacco smoke.
And, he thought, perhaps Pencroff was a reality that needed light, and perhaps he was a reality that could make his own, but there was no need to compare the two of them. Pencroff was glad not to be Gideon, and Gideon was glad not to be Pencroff, and they could respect one another in that way.
Then he smiled, quietly, wrapped his coat closer about him, and was very glad he had decided to go away for a week and think and be by himself. He needed both company and solitude; now he had his solitude, and soon he would have company again. That was as it should be.
And there were three more days, but this was quite all right. It meant he still had time to find something for Cyrus.
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